While Wellington was awaiting the news that his siege artillery was well forward on the way to Elvas, Marmont had been undergoing one of his periodical lectures from Paris. A dispatch sent to him by Berthier on January 23, and received at Valladolid on February 6th--fourteen days only having been occupied by its travels--had of course no reference to Wellington or Ciudad Rodrigo, the news of the investment of that fortress having only reached Paris on January 27th. It was mainly composed of censures on Montbrun’s Alicante expedition, which Napoleon considered to have been undertaken with too large a force--’he had ordered a flying column to be sent against Valencia, a whole army corps had marched.’ But the paragraph in it which filled Marmont with dismay was one ordering him to make over at once 6,000 men to the Army of the North, whose numbers the Emperor considered to be running too low, now that the two Guard divisions had been directed to return to France. ‘Twenty-four hours after the receipt of this dispatch you will start off on the march one of your divisions, with its divisional artillery, and its exact composition as it stands at the moment of the arrival of this order, and will send it to Burgos, to form part of the Army of the North. His Majesty forbids you to change any general belonging to this division, or to make any alterations in it. In return you will receive three provisional regiments of detachments, about 5,000 men, whom you may draft into your battalions. They are to start from Burgos the day that the division which you are ordered to send arrives there. All the Guards are under orders for France, and can only start when your division has reached that place.... The Army of the North will then consist of three divisions: (1) that which you are sending off; (2) Caffarelli’s division (due at Pampeluna from Aragon); (3) a third division which General Dorsenne will organize from the 34th Léger, the 113th and 130th of the line and the Swiss battalions.... By this arrangement the Army of the North will be in a position to aid you with two divisions if the English should march against you[231].’ [231] The ‘third division’ practically represented Thiébault’s old division of the Army of the North, which had long held the Salamanca district. This division was to be deprived of its Polish regiment (recalled to France with all other Poles) and to be given instead the 130th, then at Santander. But the 130th really belonged to the Army of Portugal (Sarrut’s division), though separated from it at the moment. So Marmont was being deprived of one regiment more.